March 10, 2007

Snow was melting like mad today as the temperature shot up to 48°. I bet more snow melted today than on any other day that I've lived in Wisconsin. There were rivulets of ex-snow everywhere. Those ice fisherman have been enjoying things all winter long. But it's balmy enough that a casual couple take a stroll onto the ice and then just stand around having a conversation.

Step a little further back and you're on the Terrace -- which is officially closed, as I read on a sign as I was leaving. See all these piled up chairs and tables?

Soon it will be like this:

But we don't have to wait for it to get like that for you guys to get like this -- picture taken today:

And while we're checking out Madison fashions, how about something for your innocent babe?

37 comments:

What bothers me most about dressing a baby in something like that is that people will continually look at him and react in a way that doesn't relate to him. A baby needs to get a solid sense of the world. People laughing and smirking at him for nothing actually about him is going to warp his mind.

And btw, it's no more amusing when the Right does it. I've seen little children at pro-life rallies with placards in their hands. At that age, they surely do not have the sophistication or wherewithal to know what they're lobbying for. It's little more than compulsory activism.

Oh, I wouldn't do it either. I think it's an unconvincing tactic, and it's pretty silly, and I would be bothered by the sorts of people that do that on any side of the fence. I'm just saying it makes a bit more sense, because presumably the mothers are saying they support life.

You're right about their being drafted, which is sort of the point of it, I guess. The kids may not know where life comes from, but that's not the point of the pro-life people as much as the pro-choice people. The pro-life people are saying value life above all, and children can, often better than the rest of us, appreciate being alive.

The politics of the geo-political situation as it relates to the Executive Branch, however, is likely entirely outside the scope of a baby's consideration.

Presumably, a baby at a pro-life rally would be especially affirmed for being alive, for her own sake, and will look at her and react in a way that does relate.

But, again, I still think it's silly, even if it's a bit more understandable for pro-life people to do.

Brendan - I feel the same way when they get a bunch of preschoolers up to sing about how much they love God at our church. I cringe at kids singing anything, but with the added phony dimension it's unbearable. Whenever I hear this:

"Hey, Kaylee, can you tell us how you feel about Jesus?"

"I love Jesus!"

It makes me want to say, "hey, Kaylee, can you tell us how you feel about crayons?"

The Mad Wisc. intellectualoids who laugh at The President's alleged lack of intelligence & inability to articulate (quick, in 2000 did you vote for the guy who flunked out of two grad schools or the one who was graduated from an Ivy one; in 2004 did you vote for the guy who was graduated form an Ivy-League grad school or a non-Ivy League grad school?) should consider the theatre-of-the-absurd presentation made the other day by their Dem leaders on the Iraq pullout & declaring defeat. The Dems appeared to be unable to figure out the basic points of what they were espousing & couldn't explain what they could figure out. Shameful & laughable that their supporters in Mad Wisc could mindlessly dare to criticize Bush for "misinarticulatibleness" or something else they think he said. Or for some untrue thing that appeared in that blog as the "Bushism of the day".

BTW, I hear that Prof Kaplan, in attempt to show his bona fides, is wearing a T shirt with the same logo!

From Inwood - are you arguing that Bush was smarter than Kerry because Bush attended an Ivy League school and Kerry didn't - that is, that all students at any Ivy League school are necessarily less smart than any student at any non-IL schools? That seems to be the upshot of your observation that "The Mad Wisc. intellectualoids who laugh at The President's alleged lack of intelligence & inability to articulate [should ask themselves:] in 2004 did you vote for the guy who was graduated form an Ivy-League grad school or a non-Ivy League grad school?"

Not so, though both went to Yale undergrad. Try to keep up with these things before embarrassing yourself. And you do realize that Kerry couldn't get in to an Ivy grad, repeat grad school whereas Bush was graduated from one. Are you now reading this instead of “feeling” it?

What does it mean? See my answer to Simon, next.

From Inwood

************

Simon

Never mind asking me what I'm saying or rephrasing my pellucid prose to what you think or feel I said. Perhaps you should stand with Prof Kaplan's whining students who feel what is being said to them.

Are you reading at grade level? Read again, slowly, what I wrote then perhaps you will understand, that I’m more, er, nuanced than you’d have it. But hey, if you don’t see the hypocrisy when Mad Wisc. intellectualoids would proclaim “Bush is dumb” after they’ve voted for two lesser achievers (you never mentioned Gore’s droppings out; how soon we forget inconvenient truths!), then buy a T shirt which says the same as the baby garment.

Ann said: "What bothers me most about dressing a baby in something like that is that people will continually look at him and react in a way that doesn't relate to him. A baby needs to get a solid sense of the world. People laughing and smirking at him for nothing actually about him is going to warp his mind."

Ann is this coy way of telling us what went wrong with dtl, doyle and reality check?

Bush and Kerry were on campus at the same time, which makes them "classmates." They needn't graduate in the same year to earn that classification. In the meantime, I suggest you direct your condescension elsewhere, as I don't suffer fools lightly.

Heavens, I happened to be in Madison today, walking down that same stretch, with my sons (and by the shadow, right around the same time). My wife and I were taking my older boy's girlfriend, a UW Madison student, to lunch.

At lunch, one young man was wearing a most hideous item of clothing, these red & white overalls - Game Bibs. Good Lord, it put me off my feed. I'd prefer a baby with some stupid Bush statement than wearing these things. And on an adult? How could you even go outside with them on?

But good God, even among the great evil that is bad sports clothing, surely striped bib overalls on grown men deserve special ridicule. What's more, this guy was at a local eatery, and no other idiot was similarly dressed (because sometimes, idiocy done en masse seems almost reasonable). He looked a bit, well, odd himself alone dressed like a lunatic, while his friends were wearing no UW gear at all.

Great photos - nice to see a little piece of another world, and what contrast between winter and summer!! We don't get those seasonal variations over here, and sometimes I wish we did.P.S. Loved the babygro!

Pogo: There were large crowds out yesterday. The city was transformed by the weather. Anyway, Here's a picture I took of a guy in those overalls last September. People dress up for the games. Wearing something that absurd shows your dedication, presumably... or just your sense of fun. And perhaps your belief that you're so good looking you can get away with it.

I know it's for fun; I'm just being outrageously outraged. But those were the pants, to be sure. And given their silliness, I hope they were the very same pants.

It would be a shame to hear that more than one pair exists.Kidding, kidding.

And what mighty colossus do we have to cheer in my hometown? Just a community college (or whatever gussied-up monicker they've been calling themselves lately. Here it is: we're a University now, albeit one that doesn't appear to grant any degrees. Must be some sort of magical thing.)

Anyway, their football team is the Yellowjackets, in the tradition of naming sports teams after anything that won't offend. A local high school, therefore, is the Awesome Blossoms. What can one say to boys on that football team? Bummer of a birthmark, dude

Brendan: You used the smarmy “FYI” on me when you thought you had a gotcha. Alas, your gotcha was incorrect. Smarmy & wrong. Pity. Now, when caught, you redefine your terms to what you, er, felt you must have meant and call me a fool. You’ve joined the inarticulate fact-free whiners who feel sorry for themselves & resort to name calling. More pity.

Simon: you keep wanting me to defend what you, er, felt I said. I don’t, er, feel like it. Especially when you won’t address what I actually said. Stop whining. BTW, good trick to keep ignoring Gore’s deficiencies & last week’s Democrat Iraq descent into “misarticulativeness” or whatever the denizens of the Peoples Republic Of Madison, with their Bumper-Sticker superficiality, feel that Bush must’ve said.

All of you, including Prof A, who feel sorry for the bedecked kid, please lighten up. Happens in every generation on every side of the political divide & on every side of the religion divide.

My Pa took me to a Harry Truman Election rally in Inwood Hill Park (Uppa, Uppa West Side). I had a sign given me by some local Democrat Party functionary which I'm sure didn't say "Vote For Dewey". (Knowing the political sense of humor, it might’ve said “Phooey on Dewey, but I digress.)

When one of my aunts asked me later what I had seen & heard, I babbled about the "guns" (presumably the 21 gun salute).

Warped me for life, I guess since I don't see today's Democrats as Harry Truman Democrats!